In the post production of both cinemategraphic films and broadcast quality video, it is always necessary to perform a process of on-line editing in which the original source material is edited to produce the final result, which may in turn be used as a master from which final commercial copies are produced.
An of-line editing procedure allows an edited version to be produced without the risk of damaging the original source material. In this way, many possibilities may be considered before a final version is produced. In this way, it is possible to use off-line editing facilities to produce a list of edit decisions which may then be implemented in the final on-line process.
This procedure of performing an off-line edit followed by an on-line edit has been implemented within digital image processing systems, in which a relatively modest processing system may perform off-line edtiting, upon reduced resolution images, under the control of a graphical user interface. Thus, in this way, image frames may be presented to a user in any form considered appropriate whereafter the system will automatically generate an edit decision list, often recorded onto a standard floppy disc or similar data carrying medium.
An edit decision list may subsequently be used in a conventional editing facility or, alternatively, it may be used in a digital image processing facility at high definition. A system of this type is licensed by the present applicant under the trademark “FIRE”. In this way, after an edit decision list has been produced, it would be possible to make modifications in an off-line system, resulting in the production of a new edit decision list or in an on-line system, where the on-line edits may be modified such that, in some respect, they differ from the edits proposed by the original list.
Both on-line environments and off-line environments require significant processing facilities and in some situations the level of editing required may be relatively minor. However, presently, unless an edit decision list is edited manually, which is difficult when most lists are only conveyed in machine readable form, it would be necessary to implement changes on a full editing system, which would usually incur significant facility costs and require the reloading of source material.